On Conflation
In wrapping up my review of the Fly Hurricane, I touched on the idea of modeling preferences falling on a spectrum (or really, multiple spectrums).
There was a reason for this.
This hobby, perhaps more than any other I’ve been a part of, is given to rampant conflation. That is to say, taking two separate ideas and combining them into one. It’s lazy, it’s reductive, and I’m convinced it’s responsible for probably about 80% of the internet bitchfights that break out on forums and social media.
What do I mean by conflation?
Simple.
If you call a kit out for shoddy mold planning and engineering – as I did with Kitty Hawk’s Kingfisher – you can expect plenty of responses that you just need to “use your modeling skills”. The implication, of course, being that you lack said modeling skills.
This is conflation.
Can the Kingfisher be built? Yes. Will I build it at some point? Almost certainly yes – if only to shove it in the teeth of internet conflationsists because whether or not it can be built and whether or not I can build it is beside the fucking point.
The point is that the kit is poorly thought out and executed – especially at the $90 pricepoint that Kitty Hawk placed on it.
If you went out and bought a $50,000 car and it turned out that the passenger door wouldn’t latch, the transmission was constantly hunting for the wrong gear, and the sunroof leaked, nobody would respond with “you just have to use your driving skills”.
If you bought a new tablet, and the wi-fi antenna was shit and the battery couldn’t make it past four hours, who would suggest “you’re just using it wrong”? Or “I got by fine on a Palm Pilot, just be grateful that you even have a color screen”?
It’s entirely possible for things to suck – or to be good – completely independent of a person’s skill, preference or experience. (more…)